luci shaw | mary's sword

 

Yes, and a sword will also pierce your own heart...

Luke 2:35

On the fortieth day, the little family waits 

in the temple for old Simeon to bless the new Baby.

His declaration is one of promise and divine import 

for the human race: our rising. Our decline.

And then, quite shockingly, he turns to Mary, 

the young mother with prophetic words: 

“Also, a sword will pierce your own heart.” 

Does she suck in her breath at the violent word? 

And did the thrust of foreboding haunt her, living as 

she did, on the fringes of her Son’s too-brief life?

We’d hope that her own pain eased as she watched

her Son’s healing miracles. When others leaped up,

restored by his creative touch, perhaps she sensed

her own heart’s flesh knit, its raw edges scarring over. 

But we guess that Mary lived the weapon’s threat 

for all those years until its deepest wound, 

there at her Son’s harsh dying,

when a sharp spear-thrust in his own side assured her, 

and each of us, a healing, and a resurrected life.